SC - Chickpeas

[Laura C. Minnick]

Actually, many of the studies I've been reading about early puberty in the
US are tentatively attributing it to our modern tendency towards overweight.
It has been well -known that many female athletes will cease menstruating
when they're in peak condition, ie very little body fat, and there are a
couple of studies going on looking into late puberty and low sperm counts
for the same reason in young male athletes.

Apparently, there is a mechanism in women which prevents fertility if she
doesn't have a certain level of body fat, presumably the amount necessary to
grow a fetus into a baby, and to nurse him/her thereafter. Similar studies
have had similar results in other species- it is thought that it is a safety
mechanism designed to prevent even worse overuse of what must obviously be
limited resources.


Phlip

Nolo disputare, volo somniare et contendere, et iterum somniare.

phlip at morganco.net

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

"All things are poisons.  It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a
poison and a remedy." -Paracelsus

"Oats -- a grain which in England sustains the horses, and in
Scotland, the men." -- Johnson

"It was pleasant to me to find that 'oats,' the 'food of horses,' were
so much used as the food of the people in Johnson's own town." --
Boswell

"And where will you find such horses, and such men?" -- Anonymous